简介

Dave Stewart is truly a multi-talented artist. He has written and produced music for numerous albums and film scores and is in recent years also recognized as both an author and innovator. TC Electronic was excited to have him contribute to our TonePrint collection with five soulful tones. Dave Stewart started playing at an early age, his first guitar being one that he bought at the local Woolsworths, in Sunderland, England.

”It only almost looked like a guitar and it was bigger than me. I actually went through a series of awful guitars and didn’t really get a good one until I was signed to my first record company”, he confesses. Nevertheless, even without a professional instrument to start with, Dave developed his skills and own style stemming from the blues of the 1960s. “I was about 13,” Dave recalls, “and my cousin sent me these blues records from Memphis. I learnt guitar listening to these records and felt the blues was speaking to me”. It was then Dave’s playing style began to take shape and form – the structure, sound and texture of blues infused Dave Stewart’s signature sound.
Dave’s inspiration for writing songs is often linked to a location. “The source of inspiration can be a taxi ride in Bangkok; halfway up a hill in Jamaica or a freezing cold, stormy night in Alaska or in Los Angeles looking out the window at the Hollywood sign. I think it’s in you, you know? Other elements can spark it off, and it’s good because the elements may add a kind of flavor.”

Dave likes to write about things that are important to him and his life. “It has to be personal. I write about things that happened in my life and things that affected me. It’s all about truth. Great music has to be real music coming from a genuine soulful place,” Stewart explains. “And that’s how I make my own music and sing my own songs.”

This candid way of creating music can be found in all of Stewart’s work, including the TonePrints created with TC. He’s made five distinct tunings using two of our pedals. All TonePrints benefit from Stewart’s signature blues sound. While the ‘Yer Mojo Shaker Vibrato’ has a Beatles vibe to it, the ‘Yer Buddy Vibrato’ has a chorus-like sound that goes well with both clean and crunchy amp tones. The ‘Drowning in the Blues Delay’ has a muted and soft sound and is especially designed soft chord passages. The other two TonePrints were created with certain songs in mind – the ‘Rain on Me Delay’ was inspired by the famous Eurythmics hit ‘Here Comes The Rain Again’ and the ‘Energy Delay’ was influenced by SuperHeavy’s song ’Energy’.